It's not the pitcher (or pitchers) Chicago Cubs fans are hoping the team will acquire before this month's trade deadline arrives, but hey, it's a start. On Friday afternoon, Chicago signed veteran righty Spencer Turnbull to a Minor League deal, a little less than a month after he was released by the Toronto Blue Jays. The New York Post's Jon Heyman was first with the news.
One glance at Turnbull's performance this year, and you may be wondering why the Cubs would bother here. The 32-year-old got lit up to the tune of a 7.11 ERA and nearly twice as many hits (12) as innings pitched (6.1) for Toronto before being DFA'd in late June, with a fastball that sat just above 90 mph. It wasn't pretty, and there's a reason few teams showed interest after the Jays cut bait.
But while this is likely just a way for Jed Hoyer to backfill some depth in the Minors, especially after Jake Woodford opted out of his Minor League deal earlier this month, don't write it off entirely.
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Spencer Turnbull signing is no risk, all reward for Cubs
This season has been a rough one for Turnbull, but you don't have to go very far back to find the last time he was a usable big-league pitcher. In fact, you just have to go back to last summer, when he was pitching to a 2.82 ERA across 17 appearances (seven starts) as both a multi-inning reliever and a spot starter for the Philadelphia Phillies. His fastball-slider combination was as good as ever, and he was looking an awful lot like the promising young pitcher he was with the Detroit Tigers in the late 2010s before injuries took their toll.
And then, well, he got injured. A lat strain in late June cut Turnbull's season short, and the Phillies opted to move on in the offseason. Turnbull hasn't thrown more than 57 innings since 2019, battling everything from elbow to neck injuries over that time. But on the rare occasions when he has been healthy for an extended period of time, he's flashed some upside, especially in shorter bursts when he can let that sweeper and curveball really shine.
It's also worth noting that he got a late start to this season, and he could very well still be working his way back from the shoulder discomfort that ended his 2024. The farther away he gets from that, the better his stuff and his command figure to be, and he does fit the profile of a lot of what the Cubs have looked for in their reclamation projects of late (Brad Keller foremost among them).
Again, this is hardly the end of Chicago's shopping spree over the next two weeks. Hoyer figures to acquire at least one more starter and reliever, if not multiple of each. But you can never have enough pitching, especially as the Cubs try to piece things together down the stretch, and it wouldn't be a shock if Turnbull winds up pitching meaningful innings in some capacity if the team can get him comfortable again.